Fat Possum Records, based in Oxford, Mississippi, originally devoted itself to the marketing of blues at its roughest — music much truer to the spirit of the genre than the slick, tidied-up stuff being peddled by too many so-called roots companies. More recently, the folks behind the firm began applying…
So what if Megadeth figurehead Dave Mustaine vowed “I’m not going to tour again” during an interview last year with Guitar World magazine? So what if he quit the band after a 2002 arm injury left him unable to play the guitar? Mustaine’s back, and given recent debates and the…
There’s probably enough hair between the members of Throcult to braid Lucifer a sick pair of suspenders — assuming that Ol’ Horny ever bothers to wear pants. For the rest of demonkind, however, the Halloween season presents a fashionable opportunity (with or without trousers) to take a walk on the…
White Girl Lust is what happens when rock music meets DJ culture. DJs Eric Kozak and Clay Meador have brought guitars back to the dance floor, creating custom set lists with innovative tools like Logic and Final Scratch. Rather than simply play song after song like other rock jocks, the…
I realize it now: I am one nervous interviewing dude. That’s the reason I’m a songwriter and a record producer, not a journalist. Not only do I detest deadlines — I’ve never handed in a project on time –but I’m really more interested in made-up stories than real ones. Also,…
I wouldn’t consider us a throwback, but I also wouldn’t say we’re reinventing the wheel of rock and roll,” says Ronnie Vannucci, drummer for the Killers. “We’re taking the best parts of the music we were influenced by, putting them in our songs and making them our own.” The Killers…
I’ve always wanted to be George Lucas,” admits Coheed and Cambria’s Claudio Sanchez. “But I’m not really. I just want to rock.” Coheed and Cambria, however, is closer to inspiring a Star Wars-like fanaticism than Sanchez may think. A Google search for “Coheed and Cambria,” for instance, yields 181,000 results,…
Not to get too gossipy or anything, but did you hear about the Apples in Stereo? After years of marriage, drummer Hilarie Sidney and guitarist Robert Schneider have broken up. Which would be nothing but old dirty laundry, except for the interesting fact that Schneider and Sidney have just released…
The other Elvis has long displayed a weakness for genre exercises, and while some of his dabblings have worked (most notably the pseudo-R&B of 1980’s Get Happy!!), the majority have felt awfully self-conscious. Almost Blue, a weak 1981 tribute to country music recently reissued by Rhino, is a case in…
You say the Melvins aren’t heavy enough? Metallica’s ’80s output doesn’t give you a sufficient blood-pressure spike? Fear not: Atlanta’s Mastodon concocts an extreme, fist-to-the-face metallic alloy that’s sure to satisfy. Less than a minute into Leviathan, the quartet’s second album, Brann Dailor’s hyperkinetic drums, Troy Sanders’s stool-softening bass, and…
Shortly after releasing Double Up in 1999, Mase left hip-hop while at the top of his game to get his life right with God. Five years later, he’s back, and not much has changed — well, except for the fact that he’s noticeably cleaned up his act. In the past,…
Upon their first spin of Scott’s latest, many listeners will miss the lightning lurking within the quiet storm. Her new disc initially seems too laid-back and subtle, but it eventually reveals itself to be a complex portrait of a woman who doesn’t need to shout to exhibit her strength. Throughout…
Autumn. To some, it’s all about chestnut hues, rustling leaves and the realization that all things must wither to be reborn. To others, it’s the year’s lowest tide of serotonin, a constant struggle to keep razors out of veins and shotgun muzzles away from dental work. The Czars’ timely new…
I confess: After one glance at this six-track EP’s lame graphics and dull jacket photo (the moratorium on pics featuring sensitive-looking musicians on staircases starts now), I expected little from the Last Seen’s most recent offering. Fortunately, the adage about not judging a CD by its cover turns out to…
If all you knew about Reese Roper, erstwhile frontman of Five Iron Frenzy, was what you’d heard of his songs, you’d think he was one self-deprecating cat, with a Chandler Bing-like knack for sarcasm. And you’d be right. Roper is the Tony Robbins of self-deprecation. Here’s the introduction he recorded…
As versed in jazz and chamber music as she is in acoustic pop, Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn has a lot more on her plate than your typical Cat Power-cloned indie chanteuse. After singing in the Hot Set, an Olympia, Washington, swing band, she loaned her bell-toned voice to the Microphones’…
Hot Water Music has torn up punk venues around the world for more than ten years, so it should come as no surprise that the band’s 2004 tour sounds a little different from some of its earlier output. Poppier song structures and a stronger sense of melody make this year’s…
“Your spine is curving like a question mark,” belts out Christopher Richards somewhere in the middle of Power, the new full-length from Washington, D.C.’s agit-disco trio, Q and Not U. Like all the band’s lyrics, the above line is as cryptic as the Sphinx. But it could very well refer…
Mr. Zimmerman doesn’t need an excuse to hit the highway; over the years, he’s played in support of good albums, bad albums and no albums at all. This time around, however, his tour takes place amid the launch of a memoir, Chronicles: Volume One — and if that isn’t proof…
While countless acts hawk Faint-ly familiar dance punk, check out the Hot Hot Heat emanating from the Fever. The quintet’s rowdy, ’80s-inspired garage rock has the power to move the most clenched denim-clad booty. Frontman Geremy Jasper twitches and yelps like a reanimated Mick Jagger (wait, he’s not dead?), while…
Opportunity has done a lot of knocking at Mos Def’s door, and he keeps answering. In addition to hosting poetry jams on HBO (and receiving an Emmy nomination for his role in the made-for-cable movie Something the Lord Made), the former Dante Smith (above) has been part of feature films…
“Here I am — rock you like a hurricane” could serve as a storm warning for the Scorpions’ latest Stateside tour, which has unleashed a sonic cyclone of power ballads and full-force rockers. Even after more than 35 years in the business, this tenacious Teutonic band still has plenty of…
